Attempting to cut through the crap of religion in order to get to Jesus.

Religion

08/31/2012

As I was going through all my job loss, shattered dreams, eviction notice stuff in Seattle, many people were writing saying that they admired my great faith. That was an amazing and confusing thing to hear. It was amazing, because it was so encouraging. Often, in my darkest moments of fear and despair, a well-timed note to me was like a balm on my heart. I am so grateful for the care and support of friends and family. I have never felt so loved. On the other hand, those blessings were confusing, because I certainly didn't feel like I possessed anything even approaching "great faith". All I felt was great, paralyzing fear and a deep, abiding hopelessness. I knew that I was powerless to do anything about what was happening to me, so I had completely given up. It didn't seem to be faith, but resignation.

As all of this was going on in my life, my pastors in Seattle (whom I hope to get the honor of doing life with again someday) were dealing with a horribly scary cancer diagnosis for their son, a teacher who lived with his wife in Korea. They were so far away, and they were expecting their first child. Rich's wife had died of a very similar form of cancer years earlier, and now he was facing possible repeated history in his own son. They were able to get their son and his wife back to Seattle, but by then the cancer was extremely advanced. He was in a great deal of pain, and every day was difficult. He was able to see his new baby right before passing away this spring.

I had lost a job and was worried about being evicted and homeless, but that was nothing compared to the sheer helplessness of burying your own child after losing your wife from the same disease. Rich had since remarried, and his wife and co-pastor, Rose, had grown to love Rich's kids as her own. They both, together, suffered incredible loss and brokenness during that time.

I have never in my life seen such great faith. In my view, it was faith like that of Abraham or Moses. They continued to lead and bleed in their community. They let people love them through the whole experience. They didn't circle the wagons or fortress themselves in order to mourn in peace. I think such a response would have been understandable, and I know that I would have most likely wanted to go that route, were I in that situation. No one would have faulted them for choosing to retreat and tend to their wounds, but, still, they prayed faithfully for healing, shared their fears and hurts, and allowed others to gather around them and experience all of it.

I have seen many church communities fall apart under the strain of such an intense tragedy in the lives of the pastoral leaders. The community feels that the best way to love the pastoral family is to give them their needed space and time. The intention of the community is, without a doubt, loving and selfless. They want to serve and bless the people who have toiled faithfully to do the same for them.

The outcome, in my experience, tends to look a lot more like division and distance, rather than unity and deeper connection. Bad news of a particular diagnosis, or an accident, or some other tragedy hits the church community. Immediately, everyone springs to action. They are all praying for healing and rescue, while the pastors withdraw to tend to their family. If, as in the case of my pastors in Seattle, the worst possible outcome happens, there is a break in the heart of the people. It is almost impossible to reunite the people, because they experience loss without the ability to do anything with that loss. They are disconnected from the core people in that pain. They want to help their pastors heal, but feel helpless to do anything. The hearts of the broken become like leaky nuclear reactors, bleeding toxic, radioactive material all through the community. Also, very often the pastors, who still need to mourn and heal, feel responsible for the bleeding of others. They need to either ignore their own pain and seek to heal their community, or they will just avoid their people in order to further tend to their own wounds. Neither choice is good or healthy.

On the other hand, if God does bring salvation or healing into the situation, the community rejoices and the pastors return to leadership roles. However, the community has gone through that time alone, in their own way, while the pastoral family went through a very subjective and isolated experience of their own. There is still a disconnect, in this case rooted in definitively unique, separate journeys through doubt, fear, pain, relief, and rejoicing. So, yes, even celebration and healing can be divisive. Often, after such events, pastors will eventually drift to a new community or leave ministry altogether.

In Seattle, I witnessed a selfless couple who shared everything with their community throughout the whole experience of loss. They did not put on happy faces. They did not fake it or will themselves to believe in healing. They didn't deny reality or hide their pain. They let us all in! I knew that this would not end the way I had seen it end countless times before. By going through that together, they insulated and fortressed their community to completely prevent further loss. The outcome of their son's disease would have no effect on the health of their people, no matter what the outcome. I saw people receive healing in their lives of real, deeply-rooted pain, just because of having the privilege of being able to go through the suffering of their pastors.

That was faith. My self-pity and hurt, coupled with feeling very sorry for myself, seemed to be to be nothing worth holding up as faith, especially compared to the real faith demonstrated by Rose and Rich Swetman. However, through the whole journey, I was able to talk a great deal with them, and they often told me that they felt completely out of control and helpless. In fact, Rich said that he did not feel like he had any faith at all. Instead, he felt something more like resignation. There's that word again! Resignation.

So, I have been told I have faith, but it feels more like resignation to me. My examples of great faith in my own life, speak of resignation as their dominant feeling. What's the deal? What's the difference? What is real faith? Does it have something to do with options? Are we defining the term “faith” incorrectly?

Let me take apart the idea of having options as a clue to these questions. Abraham, often considered the greatest example of faith in history, had his faith tested on a number of occasions. According to the stories, one day he was told by God to sacrifice his promised child on an altar. I would have loved to have been there in order to ask a multitude of questions of Abraham. What was he feeling? Could he have said “no”? What options did Abraham have? We look at that story as an example of faith. We seem to accept that Abraham was not powerless, and that God would not force his hand. Because he could have chosen otherwise, we see it as faith. Choices seem to be a key element in our definition of faith. Maybe my own adventure felt more like resignation, because I had no choices. I lost my job and was greatly screwed over by life. It was, as they say, what it was. I could not have done anything to prevent the mess I was in, and I could not will anything to change. So, I let go and, with hands in the air, let God do whatever God wanted to do. Maybe Rich’s experience was similar. He could not do anything to heal his son, and he is not wired to go through this kind of pain alone. So, he surrendered, doing only what he knew to do. He had no choice.

Hmm...I'm not so sure. Looking back, I think Rich had some choices. He could have cut all of us off. He could have walked away from pastoring altogether. He could have even distanced himself from Rose (and she from him). Instead, they both chose to do the best they knew. They didn't see anything else as an option.

I could have curled in a ball of depression, allowing all of my pain and bitterness to pour all over my kid, wrecking him for further experiencing God himself. I could have not been a father to him at all. I could have worried about myself, rather than my family back home. I could have committed suicide, just to end the pain. None of those things occurred to me, because I am not wired that way. I chose to put one foot in front of the other, and do the very best I could.

Abraham most likely never even thought of disobeying God's command. He didn't think of it as a choice, because Isaac, the promised child of the Covenant, belonged to God, not to Abraham. He simply understood that none of his blessings were his own - not even his own life or the life of his child. So, the command of God to kill Isaac sucked. It was mean and horrible. But, it never would have occurred to Abraham to do otherwise. He simply wasn't wired that way. For Abraham, his act of tying his son to the altar and raising the knife for the killing stroke most likely didn't feel like faith. It probably felt like resignation.

Yet, we all call Abraham a man of faith. People still affirm me for my faith. I still see Rose and Rich as extremely powerful examples of faith. Maybe it has little to do with choices, and it has a lot more to do with the condition of the heart. I made a choice a long time ago to live my life a certain way. For me, it was a decision to be a disciple and follower of a 1st C. Jewish prophet and teacher, named Jesus of Nazareth. My decision, though I didn't know it at the time, was the one choice that set all of the rest into motion. Because of my desire to pattern my life after the life of my leader, I started to change and be reformed. Our faith makes us. It rebuilds our hearts. It happens so naturally, that it doesn't feel real and extreme. It is like the growth of our children. We watch them and raise them, but their development is incremental and seemingly slow. We don't notice their physical and emotional growth, often until we look at a snapshot of them from their younger days. In other words, my faith didn't shape me out of some force of my will or great control on my part to avoid bad stuff. I wasn't robbing banks and then, after the decision to follow Christ, suddenly behaving myself. My faith has absolutely NOTHING to do with moral choices. Suddenly, after my change happened slowly and incrementally, I find myself no longer being wired to ignore my son and spend time and energy feeling sorry for myself.

Maybe I need to stop being so hard on myself. Perhaps Rich does as well. Even though individual decisions may feel like resignation rather than faith, the original decision of faith to follow and submit to something and Someone greater than myself, was an act of great faith, shaping me into someone who could not any longer choose otherwise. That isn't fatalism or giving up. It is being a person who no longer chooses to belong only to me. I belong to God. My life, my family, my home, my job, my city, my friends, my money, and even my promised blessings, all belong to God. I hold them all loosely. Then, I become someone who makes wise choices. Either way, though God slay me, I will continue to worship God. THAT feels something like faith.

What does faith feel like to you? What has been your experience with getting through difficult times? Have you had a choice to do otherwise? Do you tend to be critical of yourself, or are you able to see your own faithfulness?

08/21/2012

Desperation. We have all felt it, haven't we? It is the sense that something isn't right. Something crucial is missing, though we know not what. Thoreau, in his philosophical masterpiece, Walden, said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Like rats in a Skinner Box, we run the maze, bumping into dead ends and walls, searching for the proverbial pedal to press, leading to some kind of relief from our hunger. The pressing of the pedal could lead to shock and pain or filling and peace. Hope springs eternal that the result will more resemble the latter.

If you are curious as to what this looks like exhibited in real life, simply accompany me to work. On a Friday and Saturday night, starting around midnight, I see the deepest and most profoundly raw desperation in human beings, regardless of race, financial status, religious affiliation, or upbringing. It reminds me of the few times I have been in a casino, except that it is taking place all over the streets.

People wander about like feral dogs, scavengers picking through the dumpsters of urban culture. Famous, wealthy athletes and dirt-poor, faceless homeless people are on equal footing in their shared hunger and need. The self-medicating drunks are desperate to forget, seeking solace and freedom from awareness in a fermented haze. The scantily clad singles are desperate to know love and the warmth of a touch given in devotion and soul-connection. The street evangelist is desperate to win souls, believing that he has all of the answers to the needs of others, written in crisp, black and white clarity on the small tracts he hands out to these poor, lost people. But his pamphlets have not even given him the peace and fulfillment he seeks. The street vendors and bartenders are desperate to earn their daily bread, serving even the most belligerent and receiving abusive comments and looks with a smile in hopes of better tips. Even the police, whether in uniform or walking the sidewalks undercover, are desperate, seeking to get through the night without incident or accident. They are all the same. They represent the detritus of war; the waste of humanity that seems to be modern, American society.

I am these people. You are these people. Try as we all might to stand firmly upon our self-righteous pedestals, clicking our tongues and shaking our heads in judgment over these “lost souls”, we are the same. The exact same desperation that drives the alcoholic to a bottle, is that which drives the devout believer to a spiritually dead church every Sunday, in the hopes that, at some point in the previous week, the pastor was able to set aside his pornography addiction and experience an epiphany that led to the composition of a real message of hope, rather than another plea for money or a diatribe on the current President's status as the predicted Antichrist.

It is religious devotion and obligation born in hunger that compels the suburban mom to attend 4 small groups for her church every week, in all of which gossip serves as a poor replacement for deep relationships and moralistic judgment for spiritual growth. She knows that she is not safe to share her fear and pain surrounding her suspicions of her husband's affair or her son's possible drug use. Yet, she still attends, because she needs.

That same religious devotion drives the precious, beautiful, teenage girl to use her fake ID to gain access to a bar, in order to later gain access to the bed of another man. She knows he will not respect her. She knows this isn't love. She is being used as a receptacle for his rage and feelings of insignificance. This must be what women were worth. Love is sex, and sex is pain. Maybe tonight she would find a man who would treat her like a princess. Maybe, if she gives herself to him, he will realize the treasure he has received and will pledge his undying love and eternal devotion to her, just like she read about in the latest teen vampire novels. She becomes just like the old woman who feverishly prays and lights candles for friends and loved ones, both here and passed, in the lonely side chapel of the empty Catholic church.

Yes, we are the same. Yet none of the people who walk past me on a weekend night seem aware of their own condition, as I, out of my own desperation to eek out a few dollars for my family’s provision, stand outside in the doorway, checking identification and protecting the desperate people inside our establishment from the possible harm caused by the most desperate outside the pseudo-sanctuary of the pub. All the time, I am painfully aware that, if I knew the thoughts of the wolves I allowed in, I never would have accepted them. So I worry about what may be happening inside the false safety of the pub, as a result of possible mistakes of my own judgment. This springs out of the fact that, knowing my own thoughts, I wouldn't allow myself inside, much less anyone else. We would go out of business! So, I make judgments I am not qualified to make, and then I fear the repercussions. I am as desperate and needy as these people. I am as broken as the man who walks into a crowded theater or a Sikh Temple and opens fire. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

As I shared above, it almost seems as if these nightly pilgrims are completely unaware of their plight. On the other hand, they may just be resigned to their fate and circumstances. They, like me, are tired. I am worn out from the search. It is difficult to maintain and push forward without an actual destination in mind. Searching, with absolutely no identification of the thing for which I look, grinds and wears down the will and the passion for life. Maybe there is a third option. Perhaps these life travelers, also like me, are unaware of plight, tired of searching for God knows what, and feeling a bit resigned to our condition and circumstances. This is how it has always been. This is as good as it gets for someone like me. Thoreau followed up his famous quote on lives of quiet desperation with this statement: "What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." We know we are desperate. We know there is something missing. We tire of searching for it…whatever it is. So, we feel that we must resign ourselves to it all, confirming our desperation as the dominant factor of our existence.

I have come to believe that another answer might exist. So, Good News! This post is not anywhere near as fatalistic and depressing as it started!

Another answer? Haven't we tried everything? One goes to the refrigerator. Another goes to a bottle. One runs to sex, while another seeks wisdom from a pastor, guru, or spiritualist. Some have creative pursuits, while others commit crimes. Some are compelled to heal, while others are compelled to kill. All of us, with very few exceptions, are acting out of pure desperation. Some of our responses are considered culturally acceptable, while others (like killing) are not. But the core passion and drive is the same for someone like Mother Teresa as for someone like Jeffery Dahmer. We act out of a perceived good. Now, before you even consider trying, it is impossible to turn that off, rise above it, or short circuit it in any way. No amount of transcendental meditation, walking on hot coals, or lighting candles can help you with any of this. And, no, I am not going to mock you with a trite statement like, "You just need Jesus!"

Well, let me amend that statement. Jesus is the answer, but how do we even begin to get to Jesus? It seems like we would be forced to light some candles or something, right?

I have some sense of urgency with all of this, because I have a 13 year old daughter. I am getting old. I realized how ancient I am, because rather than leering like a hungry wolf at the beautiful (though mostly plastic and saline) young women walking past, I found myself thinking, "If my daughter ever tried to leave the house dressed like that, I would kick her skinny little butt!" What is wrong with me?

Anyway, this issue is huge, so I am only able to lay out the problem a bit today, but I want to take this apart quite a bit more over the next week or so. Let it suffice for me to leave you with a couple thoughts to ponder.

There seems to be a subtle, but extremely important, difference between resignation and embrace. Therein, I believe, is the key. They may not feel distinct from each other in practical reality, but they are. When Jesus faced the Cross in those final hours, do you get the sense that he was resigned to his fate? Or, did Jesus embrace the Cross?

Your answer to that question is essential to finding hope in a life of quiet desperation. Think on the repercussions to the practical application of the Cross on our lives. If we are disciples, we are trying to imitate Jesus, because Jesus leads us back to that for which we desperately search. If we are to be truly like Jesus and learn from him, how do we handle our lives? With resignation or embrace?

05/14/2012

I arrived, and I discovered that it was all that was promised! I had moved to Seattle, and the city, itself, is everything it was billed to be. The church community at the Shoreline Vineyard was absolutely amazing. For me, it is truly a land flowing with milk and honey.

Now, as I am writing this, I am working the door in my new job as a bouncer at Fox Harbor Pub & Grill, back in Green Bay, Wisconsin. What happened, God? Is there any reason why you showed me that land? Am I to die within sight of the fulfillment of the promise, as Moses did? How is it a promise, if I never get to realize it?

I want to break all of this down, because I am finally at a place of some clarity on this whole adventure. I have not, by any means, arrived. I still have some frustration, anger, and pain around the whole thing. I have felt, at times, abandoned, betrayed, and lost. I have now, at least, found a bit of a place of peace, because God has given me quite a bit of insight about the nature of promise, covenant, and our participation in those realities. When God gives us a vision for a promise, God fills us with a fire and passion to see, at any personal cost, the fulfillment of that promise. Of course, we will soon face the "buyer's regret" of signing this contract, but that is exactly why God lets us get excited and to burn with an all-or-nothing, consuming desire to see it all.

I have heard people make gossipy, negative comments about others who, in a moment of overwhelming emotion and desperation, commit their lives to Christ, perhaps in an altar call type of setting. An altar call, for the uninitiated, is a Protestant tradition of making people very aware of their moral and spiritual depravity, presenting the promise of salvation in Christ, and then asking people to respond by coming to the altar in the front to publicly proclaim their repentance for their depravity and their desire to have Jesus become their personal Lord and Savior. It's not my style as a pastor, but what do I know? Who am I to judge? It is precisely the emotional surge in response to the promise of being washed clean and being reborn in Jesus that seems to give us the strength to continue to persevere in living out the relationship during difficulties and while facing obstacles later in the journey. We often forget how that surge drove us to the feet of God in the first place. It's not empty, weak emotionalism that is the birthplace of faith, but the mustard seed of purpose and vision, planted by God and intended for the increase of our ability and willingness to try, risk, move, flow, fail, succeed, learn, and grow. It is not an overriding of our internal self, but an intensification of all that was hard wired in us in the womb.

It seems that Abram, later Abraham, must have been filled with that kind of emotional passion when he left the land of Harran, the land of his family and all he knew, and set out for the strange land promised him by God. He knew nothing about that land, other than God promised to prosper him there. He was an old man, far beyond the age of taking risks and being filled with vision for new adventures. Cribbage, golf, and hip replacements should have been the substance of his life, not starting over. All Genesis 12 gives us is the command of God to go to this new land, the promise of a prosperous future, and the simple phrase:

"So Abram went...".

Was it really that easy? What was going through Abram's mind? Did God show up in person to Abram and then travel with Abram to this new land, eliminating all doubt and fear? There is nothing like that in the passage. It is simply command, promise, and response. Maybe I am different, and I am less obedient than Abraham. Maybe he had that kind of simple faith that I would love to have. God says it, and I believe it. That would be wonderful, but I am much more dysfunctional and neurotic than that. I need a full conversion of my heart to take on a brand new life. I need a personal transformation each and every time God gives me something new. I am still a very, very young man (ahem), but I imagine it would be much harder as an old man like Abram.

I think the first key to unlocking the complex, mysterious reality of interacting with a living and personal God is found in a closer examination of the promise. The promise is the seed of hope and a future of prosperity and purpose. That promise is the spark of fire that launches Abram into a risk-taking uncertainty and a willingness to turn away from all that he knows and finds comfortable. Because of our own punishment/reward mentality, however, we often see the promise as a reward for good behavior. If we do it right and follow the rules, THEN we get the promise. If we don't, the promise goes away. It is a conditional promise based on a proper response. So, it is all on us, and we no longer need God. God, then, stops being King and Lord over our lives, and is reduced to a controllable and ignorable fortuneteller or life coach.

Abram kept God exalted to God's rightful place as Lord. However, I have to imagine that there was at least some questioning and struggling on Abram's part. While it is not in the biblical account, just by the very fact that Abram was human, I would think that he would have wanted to double check the source before leaping. He would want to see that God was actually the one addressing him. At some point, Abram must have reached a place of confidence, because he went.

Upon arriving in the Promised Land, Abram built a huge mansion of brick and mortar, establishing the first suburban, gated community. No, actually, he walked around. He would pitch his tent and then, breaking camp, move to a new part of the land. He wanted to explore the whole area, in order to see what God had given him.

Then God appeared to Abram and restated the promise. Why? We don't know for sure, because we aren't given that information. However, I would guess that Abraham needed to be reassured. The passage tells us that the land was occupied. Abram did not show up with an army. He had his wife and his nephew, Lot, with Lot's family along as well. They were not battle-hardened soldiers of fortune. They were nomadic herders of livestock. I don't know about your experiences with this, but I have learned, through some really awkward moments, that if I walk into someone else's yard and pitch a tent, claiming that God promised that land to me as my inheritance, the current inhabitants tend to protest. The Canaanites, unlike Abram and company, actually had multiple armies. So, once Abram saw that the land was occupied by other, armed people, who would not just kindly apologize and immediately move out upon learning of the promise of a God they did not know, based on the word of a strange, nomadic farmer, Abram probably needed some encouragement.

God showed up to remind him of the passionate vision that had brought him to this strange land in the first place. THEN, finally, Abram was able to build the mansion, and he and his wife were able to live happily ever after, never struggling or moving from that permanent, promised home. Actually, he built an altar, not a home for himself. This action was the equivalent of planting a flag, claiming the land for God. Abram never actually ended up building a permanent structure for himself. In fact, the very next verse tells us that there was a famine in the land, and he had to leave to go to Egypt. I'll talk a bit about that next time, but I want to focus in on the nomadic life of Abraham, a homeless man with a promised land. The only piece of land he ended up legally owning was a field with a cave, where he would be buried next to his wife, Sarah.

Here's my point. Abraham seemed to be aware of a truth that most of us miss. When the promise is given, we become passionate and fired up about pursuing that promise. This is a tool for God to keep us checked-in and intentional. However, the danger in that passionate pursuit is in mistaking the promise for the One who made the promise. We don't pursue the Promised Land. We pursue the Promiser. Our passion is awesome and necessary, but it can quickly become a detriment and even a cancer if it becomes more than a motivational driver, leading us to trust and obedience.

Abram seemed to instinctively know that none of this was about the land. It was all about God. The promise, even after it was shared with Abram, never actually belonged to Abram at all, as something to be possessed and held tightly. Therefore, Abram did not kick, scream, and cry when facing Canaanites or famine. He did not cry out to God about being forced to go to Egypt for a time, in order to continue to feed his family. He just did what he had to do. God didn't command him to go to Egypt, and God didn't punish him for going without a direct order from God to do so.

I have trouble with that much freedom. I want God to tell me, step by step, what I must do every single moment of every day. I often complain to God about how slow and stubborn I am. God, if you want me to do X, don't leave me on my own to do it. I am bound to screw it up. Tell me how to do exactly what you want, and I will do it. I want you to micro-manage my life. That approach is as sinful as trying to take over and do it all on my own, looking at God as a life coach, rather than Lord. Either way, I'm trying to control the divine.

God trusts me. God wants me to make mistakes and fail, so I can learn. Those failures are not detrimental, as long as my heart is fixed on God and not the promise.

The telos (or inherent, core purpose) of each and every one of God's promises is to drive us to the heart of God.

The promise is never intended to replace God as our source of strength, provision, or joy. The land is just dirt. As they say, the grass is always greener. I will not be able to hear God better or have more faith in Seattle than in Green Bay. Seattle cannot bring me joy or fulfillment any more than Green Bay can. God told me to go to Seattle. I went, after double and triple checking. For me, it became a place of famine, so I had to go back to Egypt for a time. God provided a job with SmartRelationships.org for my wife and a job as a bouncer for me. This is not my dream job, nor is it the provision that God promised. However, both positions will keep us alive and paying our mortgage for a little while, at least until the famine ends.

So, I turn my back on the Promised Land, and it is now okay. I know that God has something for us. I believe it is in Seattle, but it could be Boston, Phoenix, Minneapolis, New York, or any number of places. The land is dirt. God is eternal, and God is good. God is the treasure and the point of the promise. If I hold lightly to the "where" and cling tightly to the "Who", I will find the fulfillment and the joy I desire. This has given me great peace in a time of confusion and turmoil.

So, how about you? Have you ever had a "Promised Land"? Did you get it right away? Are you still hoping to get there? How has God dealt with you in this area of your life?

03/05/2012

Well, doomsday is finally upon me. This morning, barring a last second call from the governor, I will be dead man walking on the green mile. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I will have to walk up to the rental office in my apartment complex and explain that I cannot pay the rent.

First, I want to thank all of you who have helped us out with very generous gifts. You have helped sustain us, and I thank you.

The hardest part for me will be telling Eli after school. He still believes in the goodness of God, and he is absolutely convinced that God will come through for us. I, admittedly, have fallen into total despair on that one. I love the idea that God is with us. However, God is not the one who has to talk to the manager. God is not the one who has to break my son's heart. God is not the one who will be humiliated.

I'm sorry. I'm just sad and pissed.

I don't get it. If there's something I am supposed to learn in all of this, fine. I admit it. I'm an idiot. Hit me in the head with the lesson so I can learn it. I didn't take unnecessary risks. I didn't foolishly squander my money on booze, gambling, and loose women. I did everything asked of me. We were broke when I moved here. Now we are broke AND in debt.

The frustration is overwhelming. The hollow in the pit of my stomach that had been absent during my time of working on getting healthy is back in full force. I am, again, alone and abandoned. The football has been pulled away, right before I was able to kick it.

The thoughts and feelings I have going through me are scaring me a bit. I feel like I, again, have failed my wife and kids. I feel like I can't win, even when I do everything perfectly. I continuously flunk life. I feel like a shitty husband and father. I have felt this way many times in the past, but this time there is a finality to it that goes beyond the norm. I have always been an eternal optimist, but now I feel no hope.

Church was difficult for me yesterday. They talked about giving and generosity, which was fine. The problem came in the prayer time. I held my hands open to receive whatever God had, and I felt completely lame. The pastor spoke of releasing the financial and personal burdens that are on us and trading them in for the grace and mercy of God. Surrender them and don't carry them anymore. Awesome prayer and message. I have prayed that as a pastor for others many, many times. I was dismayed and afraid, when I realized that I have no idea how to do that. What does that even mean? If I think really hard. If I concentrate just right. I won't have to walk up to the office in a little bit? I won't have to borrow money to rent a truck to get Eli back to Green Bay? My wife and kids will suddenly be better off with me than without me? I will suddenly be a productive member of society?

No. I just felt lame.

No matter how much I set my jaw in determination. No matter how I did all I could possibly do to find work. No matter how much I try to will myself to believe. I am just left lame.

Sorry, folks. I tried. I tried harder than you can imagine. I simply have no fight left in me.

Sorry for the bummer post. I am naive and stupid enough to, most likely, start dreaming again as soon as I'm back in Green Bay. I'm also sure that I will be all excited again soon, and I will share all of that with you. I'll even race back to the heels of God. I'm like that fool, mongrel dog that keeps loving his master, no matter how many times he gets kicked. I'm too dumb to leave God and stop following Jesus. Besides, where would I go? He's the only one with the words of life and truth. Plus, in spite of all my efforts to stop it from happening, Jesus has completely captured my heart. I am his slave.

So, another dream is dead. I couldn't make this one go either. Edison screwed up 9999 light bulbs, Lincoln lost a whole bunch of elections, and all of that crap. Right now, I just feel lame.

02/28/2012

Last night we started a three-day fast as a church community. Now, three days is not too bad in terms of length of fast. I have done much longer ones, but this year it seems rather daunting. When I am doing well, I really don't struggle too much with fasting, though I kind of cheat. What I mean by that is that I tend to make myself super busy, so as to not notice that I am hungry. I dodge it, because it is uncomfortable and unpleasant. I don't want to feel the pangs and longing for sustenance. What if I let that feeling come upon me unchecked? What if it is too much, and I can't help but give in to it's machinations and attacks on my desire and my psyche? Then, I will break down and eat. I will flunk fasting.

I have a personal policy, mission statement, model, or what have you, that basically says that I will not take on anything that leads to failure. Unless I believe that I will succeed gloriously, I won't take on a mission or task in the first place. It's an approach that gives me a sense of control, even if it is merely illusory. I amaze myself at my ability to fool me, to override my own sense of reason. I can get myself to buy my own lies and cons much more readily than I ever could fool someone else. I actually buy my own false persona more than the people to whom I pitch that foolishness. Back when I was doing sales, we always said that the easiest person to sell was always a salesperson. Hmm. There's some truth in that. I'll buy it.

What I'm learning, though, is quite contrary to my little, personal policy. God seems to be after surrender. Willing surrender. A laying down of our crowns. So, if that's true, God is also willing, I believe, to let us have some sense of power and control, rather than limit us in that. However, if we make a vow to surrender and obey, all bets are off. God pulls the curtain back on our own lives and shows us that, if we willingly give God reign in our hearts and minds, God will take us seriously on that vow. God will let us know just how little control we have and always have had. Our sense of control and power over our own lives is illusory, precisely because it is all propped up on self-built structures. These are not foundations that God has built in us. Rather, they are hills of sand upon which we build our walls, floors, and statues in honor to ourselves. A little rain washes all of it away.

I love the story of the Wizard of Oz, the actual book, rather than the movie. The movie creeps me out on a number of levels, but more about my psychological trauma another time. The book explores, in a much deeper way, the fact that the curtain being pulled back on the true "Wizard" is not the exposure of an external, evil lie. It is the exposure of Dorothy's true self. Remember, all of the characters in Oz were the projections of her own imagination; of people she met in regular life. She always had the power in her to face this hidden fear and pain and return home. Instead, she made up a Wicked Witch who sought to destroy her, a Wizard who was to be a source of hope but ended up a liar and a con artist, and a set of goofy friends with focused, explicit flaws and deficits to mask her own. These were all doubts and fears and evils and insecurities internal to Dorothy. When God pulls back the curtain, I think we often expect to see a little red guy with a pitch fork, horns, and a tail. Instead, we see ourselves.

Fasting, then, is not about challenging ourselves to see if we can go a few days without food, kind of like running a marathon. It is not primarily about stretching ourselves to become people adept at hurdling life's obstacles. It is also not about a physical detox, launching a new diet, or changing how we approach food. Ultimately, spiritual fasting will not have any effect on our relationship with food and our desire to be healthy. It is also not about sending up a more powerful prayer, jumping through one of God's hoops, or sending up a bigger flare to help God remember us. We often think that a prayer is good. A prayer accompanied by fasting is flashier and better. If God didn't answer my prayer the way I wanted the first time, God will have no choice but to do things my way if I also fast! That is most likely not the conscious thought, but, rather, it can be a very subversive undertone to Christian fasting.

And look, none of the things I listed above - stretching ourselves, seeking health, and effective prayer - are bad things, in and of themselves. They are all great pursuits, and well worth doing. In fact, bravo, carpe diem, and hooray for you for desiring any of the above! Unfortunately, fasting for these purposes will probably leave you feeling cheated, because you will not get the results for which you were searching. After his 40 day fast, Jesus was not said to have felt elated, stretched, healthier, proud of his accomplishment, or more spiritually powerful. The Bible says, "He was hungry." Also, he seemed to be weakened, or the devil probably would not have thought it an opportune time to try to tempt him.

All of the above (faulty?) goals of fasting have a core, fatal flaw that goes beyond just not working. These motivations for fasting actually destroy our ability to have fasting actually impact our lives because of one, central lie. They make fasting into a pass/fail endeavor. When someone has a goal to finish a marathon, not only do they need a psych evaluation, but they either finish or don't finish. They have either succeeded at their goal, or they have failed. If they make it 26 miles and collapse, after their hospitalization they will not speak of it as a success (at least without a great deal of rationalizing and self-deception). They will have failed in the depths of their hearts. Their goal was to finish a marathon, and they fell .2 miles short of that goal. Either we lose weight and eat healthy foods after our fast, or we don't. Either our prayer is answered exactly the way we want it answered, or we are left scratching our heads in wonder at why God could be so mean.

The other option is even worse, and it's what keeps many of us from fasting in the first place. We look for the cause of our failed outcome. "On day 3 of my 7 day fast, I was making the kids their dinner, and a french fry fell off the plate, and, without thinking, I ate it, and I immediately repented, and I didn't eat anything for the whole 7 days (except that 1 french fry), and THAT act of disobedience must have been more than God was willing to accept, and God must have been mad at me, so I didn't get my prayer answered."

Wow. No wonder we don't want to fast. I would never be able to follow such a strict, merciless, and graceless god, much less endure the hardship of fasting for such a being. The pass/fail model of fasting makes God into a fascist dictator rather than a loving Father of Lights, from whom all good gifts come. God's love is lavish and overflowing, not rationed out in terms of little rewards for good behavior. So, you had a fry. You are not, contrary to your beliefs, going to Hell. But I think that idea of God and that approach to fasting says more about us and our need for control. We do good, and we get rewarded. We do bad, and we get punished, or love is withheld. I will make myself not eat even a fry for 7 days! I can control God by not eating a fry. I can make God do what I want. I have control over my whole life.

Fasting, like the Wizard of Oz story, pulls back the curtain on ourselves. When we fast without seeking a desired outcome, besides seeking a greater knowledge of God and ourselves, we are stripped bare before God. We have to eat, or we die. We are afraid of death, so we overcompensate and eat too much. Letting go of that compulsive desire, and the slavery that goes with it, exposes the grimy, nasty thing for what it is. We would not have this imp on our backs if we weren't fallen, broken people, desperately in need of God. Rather than a well-intentioned agenda, we can fast without an agenda, giving God permission to be God and to reign in our lives. That releases all of the power and promise of God on our whole identity and purpose. I guarantee that what God wants to do in us is infinitely better than anything we can come up with for God to do for us. That is the true surrender that leads to effective, life-changing fasting. Then, if I break down and eat a package of Oreos, I can acknowledge the fact that I am still a slave to my own sinfulness. Rather than worrying that I may have jinxed the desired outcome, I can simply repent of my foolishness and re-engage in the fast, desiring to break the hold that Oreos have over me. As a result, my desire for nothing to stand between me and God overrides all of my other, more carnal desires. I do the little bit that I actually have the power to do, in order to unleash God to do all of the incredible things that only God can do!

So, since I have a tendency to make myself really busy and avoid the feelings of hunger, I decided to take on a more difficult fast for me. I wanted to really "feel the burn" of this fast, so I am taking on something to which I am in total slavery right now. I want God to break its hold on me. I am giving up panic, worry, and fear for these three days. With no job and my rent due on Thursday, I have surrendered to debilitating panic a number of times this past week. It eclipses my faith and blocks my view of the horizon that is my God. And you know what? I need that fear, worry, and panic. They are comfortable, familiar companions for me, like a security blanket or my favorite flannel shirt. I crave panic and worry, because then I feel in control. I can worry and fear a problem like no one else, and that makes me feel like I can do something about it. I don't like the idea that I did nothing to deserve losing my job. I have no ability to make someone hire me and pay me. I cannot will employment upon myself. I definitely can't possibly get a job and receive my first paycheck in two days to pay my bills on time. It's all out of my hands. I don't like that, and I NEED to worry to feel like I am doing something. To feel like I actually matter in the equation.

This week, I am trying to release that in a fast. If my stomach turns when a realization of a very valid fear creeps in, I acknowledge it and move forward. I won't indulge any of it for the next three days. This has been WAY harder for me in my current situation than any food fast. However, I want to let God do what only God can do. Who of us by worrying has added a single day to our lives? Fear has been crushing me, making it hard to breathe, hard to function, and, worst of all, hard to pray. I want its hold on me to be broken. Fasting, then, becomes a sort of spiritual warfare, without all of the shaking and the head spinning. I am not doing this in hopes that God will give me a million dollars in three days time. God may still allow me to be evicted. God may still let me go into more debt. I don't have any idea. I'm doing this, because God is good. God is what I desire in my life. I get excited, then, about fasting, because I can't wait to see what God will do!

So, how are you with fasting? What have your experiences of fasting been? If you have never tried fasting, what have been some of the reasons that have kept you from attempting it? For the daring: What has a hold on you right now that you would love to see God break? Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your responses!

10/28/2011

Models don’t work. Programs don’t work. Doctrine as the basis for faith, doesn’t work. Universal moral truths and principles don’t work. Life is far too messy and too complicated. God, while the same yesterday, today, and forever, is not static. God is a dynamic reality with constant and ever developing plans and purposes. Why would be so arrogant to think that God would fit in our tiny definitions, models, and doctrine? If God did fit in our boxes, would that being still be “God”?

I am always studying ways of doing church and working out faith in daily reality. There is always so much to learn, and I have, in no way, “arrived”. I am on a journey, like anyone else. I have simply embraced my status as a “failed pastor”. This does not mean I define myself that way. As a matter of fact, I have rejected that completely as a definition of my inner and outer self. I am not a failure. However, embracing that, by all current model and success based definitions and models I am, indeed, a failed pastor, this frees me up to see the deficiencies and failures of the system itself, rather than focusing on my own. Of course, my own failures are legion, but they are all learning experiences. I have merely learned the 99,999 ways to NOT do church. I do not walk around as a failure. I am a man who says, “Yes!” to God, even if it leads to me looking like a fool or dying. No matter what, it always leads to God’s glory, and it is for that glory that I live and breathe. My own reputation and life are God’s anyway. I have no say in how they are spent. Does that make me weak? Sure. But it is in my weakness that God is strong. I am a “Yes Man” for God, and I have grown in incredible wisdom and strength as a result of being weak and foolish enough to do whatever God asks of me. We cite Romans 8:28 all the time, “…all things work for the good for those who love the Lord, Jesus, and are called according to His purpose.” That’s awesome, and it is encouraging! ….until you think about all of the martyrs who loved the Lord, Jesus, and were called according to His purpose. How did they feel about all things working for the good? When we make ourselves truly available to God, when we pray the life-threatening prayer of “Thy will be done…”, we just have to be aware of counting the cost. By embracing how I completely serve at the will and whim of God, I am free to look at all of these church and faith things with nothing to lose. I like that position.

So, back to our Willow Creek and Bill Hybels example, God has used him and his church mightily. No question. In terms of current measurements of success, Willow Creek would be in the upper echelon of all models of successful church. But I have two damning observations to make here, as I see church after church adopt that model and fail. First, none of the people who seek to copy the Willow Creek model are named “Bill Hybels” or live in Barrington, Illinois. God did a very specific thing in a very specific time and place with a very specific person who bore a very specific gift set. If Bill Hybels, himself, was starting Willow Creek right now, I doubt he would have the same level of success. As a matter of fact, to his immense credit, Hybels is re-thinking the whole thing. He is no longer seeing the impact with this generation that they saw with wealthy, suburban, mostly white, already-believing Boomers. He is moving with the Spirit to see where God is leading into the future. My point is, his model and formula worked, not because it was a great formula or model, but because all of the factors were perfectly in place for radical success. Like pulling the handle on a divine church slot machine and seeing all the reels come up with “7’s”, Hybels was lucky. I think he would say the same thing. His “Yes” to God led to this path. It may have, just as easily, led to utter failure and poverty. He could have had all my struggles, and I could have had the massive church in Barrington, Illinois. C’mon, God!!

The second observation I would make is one of lasting success. This requires some linguistic common ground as well. By “success”, do we mean “a big church with lots of people and resources? Lot’s of people being willing to attend church to hear about Jesus, who might, otherwise, not attend? Lots of people being evangelized and even seeking salvation (a term which has lots of baggage of its own to deal with)?” If those are our definitions, then, without a doubt, Willow Creek is a success. Billy Graham was an incredible success. Rick Warren is the most successful Christian leader of all time. But, if we dig into that definition, we expose some problems.

This is not intended to, in any way, take away from how God has impacted hundreds of millions of people through the ministries of these three men. I am only raising questions that each of them have raised, themselves, in times of introspection. How many people, of those who have responded to altar calls, prayed the “Sinner’s Prayer”, and committed their lives to Jesus in all three of these ministries, are still following Jesus with anything resembling fervor, commitment, and passion today? What percentage of those affected by these ministries have a solid walk of discipleship that perseveres like a rock in times of storm and trial? My definition of success would be more about leading people to experience the Presence of Jesus Christ, so that Jesus can do a work in them that will last an eternity. In the process, I give people the skills, encouragement, and support to be able to say “Yes” to Jesus, regardless of circumstances. Any ministry that can do that is an incredible success. Why? It’s Multiplication vs. Addition.

Models are all about Addition. They are about growth and adding more people to our list of those who hear the Gospel. That is far too shortsighted. Jesus did not waste time with addition. He was all about multiplication. How does one man change all of human history? He makes disciples. He doesn’t make sure he always preaches to at least 100,000 people, to add the most possible. He focuses on 12 people, speaks into their lives and hearts in a special and unique way (in their vernacular), in order to make them into disciples, willing to say “Yes”, even unto death. He did not change His message to appeal to the masses. That would be easier and more spectacular. He did not sit down with the 12 and plan out a marketing strategy and PR scheme to reach the most people. He poured life into the 12. He had a single conversation with a single, promiscuous, Samaritan woman at a well, so that she became a zealous herald of the King. We see multiplication at work through that story, as the people she tells about Jesus proclaim that they now believe. They even say that they no longer believe because of what she told them, but because of seeing Jesus, themselves! That is multiplication. His last words to His Disciples while still in the flesh before them did not involve any kind of tactics, outreaches, models, programs, doctrine, principles, or numbers-based-goal-setting. They were about multiplication: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Multiply yourselves. Then, when Peter preaches for the first time, the 3000 who are added as a result are tacked on at the end as an afterthought.

From my time as a youth minister, alone, I have more than 20 people who, as adults, have gone on to do full-time work for the Kingdom: pastors, youth pastors, evangelists, missionaries, liaisons to the Muslim community, teachers, writers, and many other pursuits of a life of discipleship. I never had a flashy program that put lots of butts in seats. I was never good at adopting models. I simply introduced a lot of kids to Jesus. As a result, I multiplied myself by more than 20. Some of them stay in touch. Some are not even talking to me because of issues or baggage or something stupid I did. Nonetheless, as I stalk them on Facebook, I see they are still following Jesus. I have been multiplied. They are making lots of disciples, who will make lots of disciples, and on it goes. I become the indirect spiritual father of a multitude, all because I was foolishly willing to say Yes to God’s direction to pour into some teenagers. That is a pretty cool success story.

Where we run into trouble is that the models currently rule the day. They are unquestioned. They are absolute. We define ourselves by them. We are a “Willow Creek Church”. So, Bill Hybels, himself, blessed you and sent you out with people, support, a plan, and a blessing? No…it means that we pay the yearly fee to have their models and resources sent to us…

We are a “Small Group Church”. Cool! I haven’t heard of that community of churches. How is that working? Well, we aren’t affiliated with a larger community. And the small groups seem to be going ok. Some of them are a little inward-focused. Some are kinda “support group-ish”. I am more of a large group presenter, but they need me to come up with the lesson, discussion questions, and plan for each week. It’s a lot, with meetings, sermons, counseling sessions, etc., but I do it. It’s way outside my gift set, but this is a conservative area, where people are very private about faith, emotions, and life stuff. If I don’t give them lots to do, it’s torture for the leaders. Then they burn out, and I have to lead some of the groups or shut them down. If I do that, the congregation starts to thin out, because people perceive that we are failing.

We are strictly “Urban Church”. Cool! What’s that like? Well, it’s good…I guess. This is what God called me to do. It’s hard, but it’s really good! Really good! I mean, He’s doing great stuff in me! Awesome, but what is the fruit of your ministry? Well, these are really hard people. There is a lot of addiction, so we have to get people clean and sober. There is a lot of poverty, so we have to feed a lot of people. God is good, but none of these people have money. We are in a loosely affiliated group of churches, so there is no common pool of resources to support urban church planting. Our population is not only broke, but they are also transient. We aren’t able to do consistent ministry with them. It’s really hard…but it’s so good!

We are “Home Church”, just like the 1st Century Church! That’s what we want. We want do church, just like the apostles did it! Cool! So you guys fight and disagree all the time about the requirements for entry into the community? Huh? No way! I told you, we have the unity of the first century apostles. We have a common purse, just like Shane Claiborne. How is that working? Well, I’m no Shane Claiborne. We have had a lot of trouble adapting that to a modern age where people no longer live like that. We are also having trouble with people refusing to grow and reach more people. They all say that they have just grown to trust the people we have gathered already. Adding more people would just change the dynamic, and we’d have to start over with building trust. We have been the same size for the last 10 years, with the exact same 20 people. They are not really developing in their discipleship, because they never encounter people who aren’t like themselves. There is no “iron sharpens iron”, because they all agree, and we are all preaching to the choir every week.

This list could go on and on with an incredible number of conversations I have had with struggling pastors. Those who are successful are not model or tactic focused. They are simply people who say Yes and trust God to use their gifts. Bill Hybels didn’t even have a model. As a matter of fact, he was 20 years into the Willow Creek experience, before he asked his team if they should maybe start writing some of this stuff down.

God does not call the people who have the best plan or model. God does not go after the smartest and the most articulate. God doesn’t even call people to tasks for which they will necessarily be successful by any definition. God calls people according to character. God calls those who will say yes, drop their nets, and follow. When we take our focus off of our little structures, and put it on the response of Yes, we are set free to succeed, fail, thrive, or falter all for the greater Glory of God and the expansion of God’s Kingdom.

10/13/2011

Getting back from Colorado Springs has been interesting. I was reflecting on how much I enjoy that conference each year. It is my favorite time to get together with my Vineyard family. This is not only because of the gorgeous setting, though that doesn’t hurt at all. It is all about the people.

Because it is, specifically, a mission leaders meeting, all of the people who attend have a common mission. Jesus, throughout the Gospels, talks about unity. Paul harps on unity over and over again. It seems to be pretty important to those guys, so maybe it should be a little more important to us, as followers of Jesus in community. When I go to that conference, there is such a genuine and abiding warmth, humility, and love, it is unlike anything else I do as a pastor. Pastors are notorious for posturing. How many you running on a Sunday morning now? WE have had explosive growth! We have doubled in size since the last conference! That’s right! 100% growth in one year! I don’t know, I’m thinking about talking to the Big Cheese about becoming a regional director. I hope that isn’t thinking too small…

All the time that “Pastor Joe” is saying that, he is internally panicked that you remember he had only 10 people last year, so 100% growth is not all that impressive. I’ve never gotten into all that. I think 10 new people in a year is something to be celebrated! That is 10 people who have found a home in your community. Even if, by 10 new members, you are counting their children, pets, and extended family from out of state, whom you might see on major holidays, there is a rooting and an anchoring taking place in those people. That should be celebrated. However, it is uncool to celebrate. Just watch any post-game coverage for any professional sport.

“Yes, we won 49-0, but we got lucky. They have a great team. They are very dangerous, even though they picked up their QB today…right before the game…through a fan raffle…. You never know what that septic tank cleaner might have done, if our linebacker hadn’t put him in the hospital on the first snap. I hear he already remembers his name, so that’s hopeful. Our prayers go out to him and his family. Playoffs? No, we aren’t thinking of the playoffs. We aren’t celebrating this victory, either. No, we are thinking about Minnesota next week. Yes, they are the worst team in the league. I can’t believe they still have professional sports there… But when their QB is on his meds, and they shoot him up with Novocain, HGH, and pure adrenaline pre-game, he can be really dangerous. Yes, I heard his surgery to remove the prehensile tail was successful. I can’t really comment on that, because it seems like it just grew after they played Detroit. Maybe it’s all the chemicals… Anyway, our prayers go out to him and his family. Sans tail, he is a lot harder to tackle.”

Taking victories in stride - in other words, ignoring them - is considered good taste. It is seen as humility. When living in a world in despair, I think that is the opposite of what we need to be as church, as a community, and as human beings. God seems to celebrate everything! The prodigal son ends in a huge party, celebrating…what? He spent his entire inheritance. He took up with prostitutes and criminals. He was found eating out of troughs for pigs. What is left to celebrate? He should feel lucky to be alive, and he should have to endure months of rebuke, correction, and re-education. Instead, there is a party, just because the idiot managed to not die. It is a miracle that this kid has enough brain activity to pump blood! Let’s celebrate! He’s come home! Without a GPS!

We are so focused on being cool, clever, ironic, and relevant, that we completely miss the chance to geek out over some of the great things that God does in our lives. Instead of trading the ashes of our burnt lives in for beauty, we have exchanged our joy for cynicism and sarcastic wit. Now, this is not to deny that our larger culture is moving steadily toward cynicism and rebellion. I am not denying the need to be culturally relevant to the people who don’t know Jesus. We cannot just abandon them to their despair. But, I never see Jesus trying to outdo the people of his time with rebellion or complaining. He felt that joy and hope were the most powerfully relevant values to offer to a despairing generation. He transferred those values through unabashed, geeky, cheesy, embarrassing Love. His level of love is ridiculous. We need to emulate that love.

As I was in the mountains, I drove past Long’s Peak. I was reflecting on a trip I took as a teenager, where we did a peak ascent on Long’s as part of a week-long retreat. I remember complaining on that entire trip. I actually loved the trip, but it was part of my makeup to complain.

We had a prayer time, led by my friend and mentor, Marcus Cunningham, who is now an Episcopal Vicar in Kansas. Marcus is a wonderful guy. I see God just delighting in him. He has always been a hippy. He has never been big on things like government, meat, or bathing. When I was an adult, I actually had the chance to minister with Marcus, working full time with him at a retreat center outside of Chicago. One day, we were having guy time, just hanging out in his domicile on the retreat center property. We were sitting around talking philosophy and theology, which tends to make both of us hungry. I asked him if he had anything to eat. He said that ice cream sounded delicious, and I agreed. He was going to get the bowls, and I was tasked with getting the half-gallon ice cream container out of the freezer. There were two in there, so I grabbed the one closest to the door, the label indicating that a vanilla, chocolate swirl awaited our consumption inside. On my way to the counter, I proceeded to open the container, and was met with something that was definitely, at least in my frozen dairy experience, not chocolate swirl ice cream. It was bright red and gelatinous. Marcus….what is this?

“Oh!” he proudly exclaimed, “That’s not ice cream! That’s the placenta from Naomi’s birth! We are so excited, because this spring we are going to plant a placenta tree, where we bury the placenta under the roots of the sapling. We offer it up as a prayer for Naomi’s life!”

I didn’t hear most of that. I set the container down and left, no longer hungry for ice cream.

So, years before the placenta incident, Marcus was leading this prayer time for us in Colorado. He had us take a slice of a log that we had found fallen in the woods, and we had to pray about a value or character trait for which we wanted to be known. We also had to pray about an animal with which we identified. We were then to burn into the piece of wood our trait and animal, and we were to begin to take it on as a name for ourselves. We were all in a circle around the fire that night, ready to share our name and explain its significance. Everyone had some really profound identifications, and most of the people were crying because of the depth of healing God was doing in their identities. I always went for the joke. My name was “Sarcastic Cougar”. I saw my sarcastic, sharp wit as a charism (spiritual gift) from God. I said all of this with a smile on my face, proud of my ability to take nothing seriously. I felt so cool and “above it all” as I talked about how cool I was. All these people were buying into this cheesy, emotional crap. I was way beyond them. When I was finished, Marcus looked at me across the circle and said, “Thanks, Bill. I will pray for you. I want God to show you that you have an identity that is much deeper and more powerful than that. I pray that you will leave this identity behind.”

I felt like an idiot. I was an idiot. I was embarrassed, and my response was to be defiant. That piece of log is in a box somewhere in my basement. As I am cleaning, I can’t wait to find it and burn it. Marcus did me a huge favor that day. He continued as we worked side by side. I have always been a hard worker. Anytime I am taking on a job that is new for me, however, I complain. I do the job, but I complain. Marcus would gently and lovingly ask me to stop. Most of the time I wasn’t even aware I was doing it. My cynicism, sarcasm, and negativity had become a deep-rooted, behavioral habit. My whole life I have gone for the joke. I was voted “Most Likely to Make You Laugh” by my senior class. My wife has worked endlessly with me to see that, just because something is funny, it doesn’t mean it needs to be said. As I was driving around Colorado Springs with my friend Omar, we were trying to find a music station. There seemed to be only Evangelical preaching. I made a bunch of comments, and we both had a laugh. But, you know what? Those guys didn’t deserve it. I turned off the radio and told Omar that I hated my negativity and cynicism. I hated that I immediately dismissed all of them as useless in the Kingdom, because their style didn’t match my own. I couldn’t relate to them, so, in my mind, no one could. It just gets to the point where I get sick of hearing myself speak. Have you ever been there? I had gotten to the point where I didn’t even enjoy hanging out with myself. I had become an insufferable bore. To myself!

I have found that I no longer have a tolerance for that kind of negativity and rejection of humanity. I simply don’t have the stomach for it anymore. I find that our culture’s tendency to exalt the sarcastic and negative has really wrecked a lot of good people. Rebels bore me. I think those people (including myself), who feel the need to always make negative comments, to be really uninteresting, even when others think they are funny or clever. The dark, brooding, anti-social person (including myself) is no longer my hero. I no longer see that person as above it all. I see them (including myself) as being desperate for connection and unable to control their behaviors. I don’t approach this from a legalistic place. I just want to start weeding it out of my life. Hopefully, like Marcus was for me, I can be a person who, by example, leads others back into joy, freedom, and celebration.

I love that missions conference, because those people have found the unity that seemed so important to Jesus, Paul, and others. Many of them face death almost daily. Others have spent years in the excrement of human existence. They have lost money, time, relationships, and comfort, and they have sacrificed everything for the sake of the call on their lives. If anyone has a right to whine and complain, these people are the poster children for that right. No one would begrudge them a periodic side trip into venting about the hardships of life. Not only do they refrain from such straying, but they celebrate every single person that finds hope in Jesus. They celebrate like the father, when his son returns home. That is what I want my legacy to be. I want to be known for my joy and my over-the-top celebration of the lives of real people.

I still enjoy a good joke. I was at a shoe store recently, and the clerk kept bugging me. I always like to be left alone when I shop. Finally, when he approached me to ask if I needed help for the 5th time, I went for the joke.

“OK, maybe you can help me after all. I am looking for a casual, comfortable leather loafer. It has to be stylish and well-made. Oh, yeah, and it is REALLY important that it is resistant to blood splatter and human tissue stains…”

Sometimes old habits are hard to break. His reaction was worth the indulgence.

Have you had to battle negativity in your life? Am I making too big of a deal of this? How do you navigate a very cynical world without losing the Joy of following Jesus? How does all of this affect your faith and worldview?

09/26/2011

A quick note from me: I am so excited to be swapping blogs today with Merritt, a professional writer and blogger over at Live.Simply.Love, a blog about the challenges, victories, trials, and joys of marriage. She comes at the topic with a fairly unique perspective. She got married a little later in life, which, I believe, gives her a depth, maturity, and wisdom that would rival anyone I know. I wish I had possessed a fraction of that on my wedding day. Enjoy this post and comment! Then, when you are finished, I am guest posting on her blog today, at Live.Simply.Love, so head over there to read and comment as well! I love experiencing writers for the first time, and I am sure you will see just how delightful and brilliant today's guest is. Without further adieu, here is her post:

I met Jesus when I was 30 years old. Before that, we were just acquaintances. He was the kind of “friend” that I’d heard about as a child in the most boring, yet-seemingly-threatening-because-I-didn’t-know-all-the-stories, Sunday School classes I attended at my family’s church. I’d seen Him in pictures, usually carrying a lamb. And of course, I’d seen Him on crosses in my grandparents’ homes, but I totally didn’t get why such a gruesome thing would be on their walls. There were birthday cards with Bible verses (and more sheep) and “blessings” wished to me from relatives I rarely saw. And of course at Christmas we sang about the birth of Christ. So, I’d heard of Him, but I didn’t really know Him.

In fact, the more I heard about Him, the more I didn’t understand what the fascination was for some people. In my teens and twenties, Jesus was the furthest thing from my mind. I figured He would try to steal my fun, my joy. He represented the RULES I didn’t want to follow. So I turned away from anything resembling Him or His rules, and I made my life all about me, my way, my wants, desires, and needs. Therefore, getting up early on a Sunday morning to go hear about someone I didn’t know—didn’t WANT to know—made no sense to me at all.

Plus, I thought was living a pretty decent life. I didn’t NEED God. I did well in school. I was generally a nice person. I was recognized for community service and good citizenship. I followed most of the rules society set out for me… at least the ones I WANTED to follow. (And when I wasn’t following the rules, I made sure it was in hiding, so at least no one would know.)

I thought if I did all that I would receive the approval and attention I desperately desired from others. And in fact, my needs went far, far deeper than that.

I wanted to be popular. I wanted to fit in. I wanted a boyfriend who would love me unconditionally (and that every other girl would admire me for dating). I wanted to be the star of everything I did. In my parents’ eyes I was, for a while. And then it was no longer my parents I was trying to impress. And that became a vicious cycle of impossibilities.

I lived on the fuel of other people’s attention and affection. I did everything I could to please those outside of me, to perform to such a standard that would yield the love I desired. I could never reach it, though I was starved for it. There was never enough. Which in turn caused me to strive all the more to feed the hungry beast inside of me. Until one day I finally saw the striving for what it was. Useless. Strange as it might seem, that was years after I met Jesus.

The impetus of finally seeing Him for who He is came out of the devastation I felt at the end of yet-another-relationship where I’d sought out someone just like me. We both walked away reeling from the destruction left in the path of our unquenchable needs and our mutual inability to fill them for each other. I was finally at the end of my rope. I was done trying to figure it out on my own.

By then I’d already been sensing the call of Jesus for some time. He’d been introduced to me in a new way. Not through a bunch of rules for me to follow but in a Person who loved me deeply and wanted to do the work to be in relationship WITH ME. What?? I thought people liked me because of what I could do for them.

This was a completely foreign concept to me. I couldn’t earn His love. It just was. In fact, all that I’d done my whole life in turning away from Him earned my separation from Him. But there He was. Calling to me. Telling me there was a better way. Asking me to rest in His yoke, in His peace, in His grace. To receive the gift He was offering at no cost to me (but at great cost to Him). I didn’t understand it, but I knew it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever experienced. And it was what I’d always been searching for.

But then there was church. It was much different than I remembered as a child. No pictures of Jesus carrying sheep this time. This was the Bible Belt. It was a BIG church, with BIG worship, a BIG production, a BIG experience. It fed something fleshly in me. And it wasn’t long before I fell right back into the same-old-same-old: wanting to be liked, trying to do the right thing, desiring to fit in, be approved of, get recognition, and gain reputation…now by being a good Christian girl. I’d already stopped sleeping with my boyfriends. In fact, I broke up with boyfriends when I discovered they didn’t really love Jesus. I’d stopped partying. He’d already changed my heart in so many ways…yet there was something about His Church that was still a tough pill to swallow.

It was a Sunday morning in March 2007 after our pastor had taught on kindness. And I drove away from church sobbing. (Seems odd, I know.) But I walked away from that sermon feeling as if I needed to live up to a set of expectations that were impossible to meet. I felt heavy, burdened, and overwhelmed.

In my performance-driven mind, all I heard was that I must be more kind, more loving, be a better servant, and do certain things to show the world that I’m a “good Christian.” I thought I was already doing everything thing I could. The message played into my perfectionistic nature, my people pleasing, my desire to control, and my inclination to perform to make sure I am living up to the standard, but this time it was the “good Christian” standard. If I could just do these things, then I’d be right with God. But it was a lie exposed, and it broke my heart.

I thought all the striving was over. I struggled with what I’d heard that sounded like, This is what you need to do. And I was spent. I’d already been doing all that I knew to do. Trying as hard as I’d ever tried. And it was never enough.

That Sunday, I wanted to blame it on the pastor for not preaching the gospel of grace to me as I needed to hear it. But what I most needed to hear was the small strong voice whispering in my ear that my performance was like dirty rags. I thought my greatest sin had been my promiscuity before I knew Jesus. But I now believe the message Jesus wanted me to see more than anything is that it’s NOT about what I do. He spoke that truth loudly to me that day in the midst of my frustration over where I was and how I was being taught.

In fact, I still WANTED to earn His approval. Deep down inside I believed I could, even though the truth I knew told me differently. And I was reminded again that I am powerless over my tendency to do the wrong thing. And that’s not just limited to being unkind. It also includes my desire to be kind in order to be liked.

At the risk of alienating our host because of his recent mention of this very same verse (sorry Bill), it was around that time when Psalm 37:4 became clearer to me. "Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will grant you the desires of your heart." I’ve always been more interested in the second part of that verse—the granting of my heart’s desires by God—rather than the first part—delighting myself in Him.

But it’s exactly what He wanted me to eventually see in the midst of this struggle. I can fight all day long against the forces of this world (human and otherwise) and try to blame others for the sickness in my heart. But the truth is, as long as I’m after my desires rather than Him, the fight will be futile and the result will be empty.

On August 21, 2007, the note written in my bible next to Psalm 37:4 says, “to know Him.” Whether I acknowledge it or not, the true pure desire of my heart is to KNOW GOD, and as I delight myself in Him, I will know Him better, and my heart will be at peace. Everything else is still just striving.

Lord, thank you for exposing my pride, performance, and blame-shifting through the also flawed humans you’ve placed around me. I pray that my heart may more deeply desire you, that I would take Your yoke upon me and learn from You, for you are gentle and humble in heart and with You I will find rest for my soul (Matthew 11:29). Thank you that your burden is light. Amen.

What burdens or lies are you carrying that keep you from seeing Jesus as who He really is or from seeing His loves as it really is?

09/16/2011

I remember long trips in the car as a kid, and the anticipation of finally getting home. "MOOOOOOOOMM!!! ARE WE THERE, YET??" When are we going to get home?

I remember waking up one night as a child, screaming and wailing. When my mom came in and tried to console me, I remember just repeating over and over that I wanted to go home. But, Bill... You are home...

"Home" was also my favorite X-Files episode. If you like it as well, you are a sick, twisted individual. Let's hang out!

In searching for buildings for our church community, I just always wanted a home. But home seems to be fantasy, pure imagination, or maybe something my daughter, Maggie, made up. Home is like unicorns. You hear Christians all the time talking about looking for a home community. We pastors refer to shiny buildings as our church home. "Home" is a magic word.

For me, it has very little to do with brick and mortar. "Home" conjures up images of security, peace, a sigh of contentment, a warm fire, loved ones, familiarity, and my domain. But does it exist? We have been looking for this fantastical place since we first drew breath as a species. Abraham was a nomad, being promised a place that was not his own, though it didn't seem to belong to the current occupants at the time, either. Isaac, the child of the promise, was also nomadic, never truly settling down. Jacob was the usurper and thief. Did his soul ever find the rest he sought? He seemed truly alive and happy, only when wrestling with God. Joseph, son of Israel, seemed to be the only one who seemed to have felt hopeful and at home in the land. So, God orchestrated a plan to have him sold into slavery and thrown into an Egyptian prison, seemingly with the overall goal of taking the entire nation of Israel out of their promised home for 400 years.

Moses led them back. He, himself, was a misplaced Hebrew child, raised in the courts of the Pharaoh. For a brief time, we were all back home, yet the restlessness remained. Though our physical roots were planted, our hearts continued to wander, constantly in conflict with what we most desired and causing a repeating cycle of apostasy. We had what we thought had been promised, yet we could not settle the anxiousness of our frayed nerves.

A king! That's the answer! If we could rule ourselves, then we will truly be at home. We are only restless, because our ruler, God, is far from us. We need a king who is one of us. So, God relented and gave us our king. After David and Solomon, royal history was a long succession of sinful and destructive kings, their fatal flaw being a shared restlessness of the soul; in other words, being human. Instead of being an answer to prayer, the kings actually led us into losing our physical rootedness in our promised land. We were sent into exile. Our place of worship, our church home, was destroyed. Not that it mattered. The Presence of our God had departed a long time before that, and we were completely unaware. Strangers in a strange land. We had lost our promised home.

But, we had been warned. Many prophets, homeless themselves, had spoken the call to our hearts. The call to come home. We didn't understand, because we were home already, weren't we? Yet their call was persistent, and their voices made us long for more, grated on our nerves, and nagged at our consciousness. Come Home. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, and many others, marching on in an endless stream of sound that we conveniently put to the back of our minds, like white noise or the bustling deluge of a city. They called with the voice of our God, the source of our lives, and we responded with annoyance and condescension.

So, God showed up in Person. Jesus. He was our whole history, present, and future in one flesh. He was Adam, the prototype of man. He was Abraham, the carrier of the promise. He was Moses, in exile and slavery, yet pointing toward a reachable home. He was David, the King. He was Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who's foundations had been put in place by the new Elijah, John the Baptist. He was the Voice of God, the very Word of God, prophet without equal. He came as the High Priest and the Temple, itself! The Presence of God was back! ....and, again, we were completely unaware.

He was, and IS, the Messiah, the Promised One, who would give us the desires of our hearts. What is that desire? Is it fame? Fortune? Immortality? If you had one wish, would you wish for the affections of a beautiful woman, to never have to work again, or to be without sickness or pain? No, Jesus didn't come to give us any of that. The Messiah was here to give us the desire of all of our hearts, of which we remain as unaware as we were of God's previous departure. He came to bring us Home. But not to take us home, as we have, in our silly and limited short-sightedness, come to believe.

This place sucks. Get me out of here!

But we know that is not right. Deep down, we know it. He promised us this land. Our God does not lie. Our God is not capable of untruth.

C'mon! We are slaves here. Exiles. Strangers in a strange land. Aliens. Unwelcome. Unwanted. Not of this world. We are physically planted in this soil, even made of it, yet we long for Home. We look to our Savior and Messiah. Are You, Jesus, the Promised Hope of Israel? Or should we look for another? You aren't talking the way we'd expect. You're talking like Jeremiah, who told us to pray for the prosperity of the land of our exile. To put down roots, marry their people, and work to help prosper their nation. As slaves, we don't want to hear that we should be "noticing the flowers" or "eating like the birds". We want to kick their asses! We want to feast! We want to celebrate! Wipe them out, trash this awful place, filled with famine and disease and war and death, and beam us out! If you aren't going to beam us out, at least beam ME out! Stop talking about me turning MY heart back to God. I am not the bad one, here! I am the VICTIM! Look at these Romans, who tax us to death and then pick the scraps of our carcasses clean. Look at these Pharisees and Sadducees, they are lower than lawyers and politicians! They are the lowest! They have sold our faith, what there was of it, to the Romans in exchange for a place as puppets and jesters at the Emperor's table. The gristle and skin of our corpses, left behind as inedible and distasteful by the Romans, becomes their share of the inheritance. They lap it up like dogs! KILL THEM, JESUS, AND LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!!

Yet Jesus kept telling us to love them. Pray for them. Embrace them. He selected wanderers and vagabonds as his followers. These were restless men, longing to see Home. They doubted, fought, argued, betrayed, and made plays for power for when they got to go home with Jesus. He talked about dying, and they talked about ruling. He talked about love, and they talked about revenge. He demonstrated intimacy with God, and they ran away and hid from danger. You see, Jesus had no intentions of taking us somewhere else. He did come to bring us Home, but not as we thought. Or still think. He did not die to be my "personal lord and savior", much like my personal chef or personal trainer. He came to bring Home to us! To bring it here! We asked for a king to be one of us, and God provided us with God as King. We wanted Heaven, and God proposed the ridiculous: You can't get to Heaven, so I will bring Heaven to You! Light shines in the darkness, and we dwellers and wanderers in darkness cannot understand it. And you know what? The Messiah offering this foolish idea, to bring us our Home, was, Himself, homeless! He was definitely one of us. He knew what it was to have the anxiety of having no place to lay His head. He had no home, no family, and no peace. Then He died to make this audacious plan possible and to seal God's promise in Blood.

What do all of the many historical attempts listed above have in common? God is not in any of them. Some of them started off as something God seemed to be blessing. Unfortunately, they quickly became ends in themselves, rather than the means to get there. Others were doomed to fail before they started. Still others seem to be evil at their core. I'm almost afraid to say it, but it seems like all that's left is Jesus' way. Have we finally reached the end of ourselves? Or, am I tempting humanity to find new and exciting ways to radically miss the point, simply by raising the question? There are many such failures that I didn't even list above. One that stands out is the Nation of Israel embracing Zionism, which hits the very point I am making in this post. We still think God is in a particular place, and that place is home. The Land. It's all about the Land for us. When will God's "true people" reclaim the Land? God is not even there. There is no longer anything holy about the soil of that land, in and of itself. God is not invested at all in the political nation-state of Israel. As a matter of fact, it seems like they have overstepped their bounds. They have violated the proclamation of Moses in Exodus 33: "Unless you go with us, God, we will not go."

The dirt is not holy ground. It is now just dirt. They will not build another Temple, even though many American Christians have poured money into the area to do just that, hoping it will force Jesus to come back sooner. We don't mention that to the Jewish people. Nor do we tell them that we need an ally strategically positioned in the Middle East, in order to protect our oil interests. That money has not helped build the Kingdom of God, but has gone into more tanks and guns with which to terrorize and dispossess the people of Palestine. How is God in that, when Palestinians are also at home as God's children? Israel is grabbing, again, for home, land, and a strong sense of nationalism. God chose and blessed Israel, only to bless all of the nations through Israel. Instead, they believe God chose them to rule over other nations. As they were warned in the time of the kings, this thinking will lead only to exile.

So what is home, if not buildings, land, or soil? Well, as I have looked for buildings for worship, temples of my own making, I have only found emptiness. In trying to feel at home, I have felt cast adrift in a land of exile. While wandering in the desert for the 40 years of my life, I have longed for the promised land, only to miss the fact that God was in my camp already. I was so busy cursing the conditions of my wasteland, that I missed the Glory of God all around my tent. While in exile, I have failed to put down roots, raise a family, and pray for the prosperity of this place and these people. In all of that, God's departure has, again and again, escaped my notice. Where is home? Wherever God is Present. It has nothing to do with some stupid strip of dirt, yet millions of people have spilled blood for the sake of possessing the dirt. It has nothing to do with leaving, yet our tiny gospel is all about dying and going to heaven, raptures, and the earth being consumed. AGGHHHHH!! I get so pissed at how badly we miss the point! Jesus is standing right in front of us with tears in His eyes and His healing Blood dripping from His hands. He calls us to help Him bring Heaven here and to establish His rule and reign forever. Yet we grab for political power and earthly dominion, thinking that's what he wants Christians to possess. That is exactly what Satan offered to Jesus in the third temptation. How freakin stupid! As if we were ever a Christian Nation! There's no such thing! No national agendas, governments, founders, or economic models have EVER been of God. In fact, they are all filthy rags in comparison to God's Kingdom.

Establishing the Kingdom of God on this earth has no relationship with politics or public policy. It has nothing to do with borders or treaties. Religions, Temples, denominations, doctrines, and moralistic principles are like excrement before God. It is not based in bloodlines, ideologies, or socio-economic status. God does not respect persons.

Jesus taught us and demonstrated for us how to help extend His Kingdom: Preach Good News to the Poor, Heal the Sick, Declare Sight to the Blind, Command the Deaf to Hear, the Lame to Walk, Proclaim Freedom for the Captives, and the Year of the Lord's Favor! I'm sticking with Jesus, because I know He will bring me home.

What does this all have to do with church buildings? Next time.

"You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."

Maya Angelou

What do you make of this quote? Have you beeen home, yet longed for Home? How do you define "Home"? What would it be like? How do you know it is Home?

09/13/2011

I have been working constantly in the past week to move out of our church space. We were renting two suites and a storefront space in a very cool, classic building. It was an old fish market, with entire floors of former coolers and freezers. The whole building was brick, cement, and iron. I really liked the space, but we were stuck. We were paying more than we could afford in order to have a place of our own. I have had constant fights with space and buildings. Today, I am going to pull back the curtain for you on the inner, often-disturbing, workings of the twisted mind of a pastor. Well, I am hardly "normal" in the pastor department. I guess it would be better to say the twisted mind of Bill. Some of these struggles are common among pastoral leadership, but most are not. All I can speak to is my own experience, and hopefully we will all grasp something. I am still trying to figure out what God wants me to learn through all of this.

In 1999, I embarked on a committed and driven journey to become a senior pastor. Why? Because I felt God told me to do so. Before you commit yourself to the notion that I hear voices and am clinically insane, let me clarify what I mean by this. I believe that God speaks to us. Constantly. God has never stopped. I think this makes logical sense, considering that we are God's kids. I am always communicating my love to my own kids. The most important thing that I want for them is to KNOW, in a rock-solid, immovable sense of the word, that they are completely, totally, and unconditionally loved. I have never seen, nor can I even imagine, something that would be the limit of my love for them. There is, in my experience, no finite end. I communicate that to them verbally through affirmation, blessing, and even, sometimes, through correction and rebuke. All of my verbal communication with them is focused on showing them my love. Sometimes I love them through affectionate action. I will stop working and close my computer in order to play a game, do a puzzle, catch a movie, or just snuggle and read with them. I kiss my kids all over their faces. I pray with them. I wrestle and tickle. I will sit and play with their hair for hours on end. I kiss their ow-ies. I grab them, hug them, and hold them. I will linger at the table and discuss deep and abiding subjects with them, long after the crumbs of food have dried and crusted to the otherwise empty plates, rendering them almost unwashable.

In fact, a conversation about my children's shared desire to see a "4-D" movie, and their questions around the nature of the "4th 'D'", led us into an almost hour-long discussion on some of Einstein's dimensional theories, how the universe is constructed, whether time travel into the past would even be possible (around the question of whether the past "exists" still, in any real sense of existence), how does God fit into such a dimensional cosmology, and, ultimately, how the "SpongeBob Squarepants 4-D Movie Spectacular" at Wisconsin Dells does or does not qualify, based on a strict definition of being quad-dimensional, simply by spraying some artificial, stinky smells into the theater environment and by hydraulically shaking the viewers' seats for added effect. Maggie, my 8-year-old, capped off the conversation in her usual brilliant way, declaring, "Yeah...I love 4-D movies!! I wanna see 'Spy Kids 4-D' really bad!!" Perfect. But you know what? All three of them loved that conversation, because their Papa, a guy who teaches weekly to adults and seems "really smart", doesn't talk down to them. Their Papa talks to them as if they are as capable of deep thoughts as he is. I find that to be entirely more loving than dismissing them as being incapable of understanding. I love them in those conversations. Plus, they help me write my sermons!

I don't do it perfectly. I have, on many occasions, lost my temper and yelled. I have failed to give up my busyness for the sake of their needs. But I have learned to love them better and better every day. I can no longer, as I stated above, see an end to my love for them. If my own severely limited efforts at communicating love to my kids have born such incredible fruit, how much stronger is the perfect love of God for us? If I am communicating love all the time, God is doing infinitely more communicating of love. How silly it is for us to put God's communication to us into the realm of "crazy". It's only reasonable. The problem is not God being silent. It is me failing, most of the time, to tune in. God speaks in a million ways. I have to listen better.

I had a compelling sense in my heart, in 1999, that God wanted me to explore being a senior pastor of a Vineyard church. So, Teresa and I took our infant, Grace, and moved to the northern suburbs of Milwaukee to join a church plant (a brand new church, started from scratch) of only a few people. I was firmly on the path. We told them, from the beginning, that all of my college work had been in Catholic theology, so I needed a 3-year crash course in Evangelical theology. I was called to plant my own church, and I needed the training. The church was far too small to provide a living for me and my new family, so I took lots of jobs. I sold copiers, worked alongside a busload of convicts at a factory, making screws. No, that is not just my perception or exaggeration. They showed up daily on a bus from the Dept. of Corrections, with armed guards watching over all of us. I cooked in a Mexican restaurant. I built electric motors, painted them, boxed them, and shipped them by the hundreds on an assembly line. Finally, I got a teaching position at a Catholic High School downtown, where I had hundreds of urban kids every day. I fell in love with all of them. I taught them theology, Scripture, ethics, and value-based decision making. That was incredible. In all of this, no matter how horrible the job, I was able to continue, because ths kept us alive while I prepared to hit my life's vocation. Even making screws became all about being a pastor.

We moved to Green Bay in 2002, and things were immediately hard. It was right after 9/11, and jobs were scarce. It was overwhelming and scary. So, I dove into being a pastor. We gathered a group and started meeting in homes. That was where my battle with space began.

Your space, whether you are a pastor or not, reflects your heart. It is central. As I was starting out, I had no idea that it was important. So, when making decisions about the church, we were very intentional about what the gatherings would look like, down to the break before the teaching. Everything had meaning and purpose for us. But, I kept saying that I didn't care where we met. We could meet in a barn or a funeral home, for all I cared. As long as we were focused on all the other stuff, people would come. Buildings are stupid, and it is a waste of time and energy to focus on them. I was so incredibly right and wrong at the same time.

House churches attract a very specific kind of person, generally. The average house church person seems to like very small groups, where they can feel safe, secure, and influential. They tend to actually pull the group toward an inward focus, creating a sort of exclusive communal reality, so that the dynamic is predictable and unchanging. They don't want big church, but they also tend to see all efforts to reach out and impact the larger community as "big church ideas". Why rock the boat? We're all happy with things as they are! Let the big churches do that stuff. My intent was always to grow the church and go to a public space. I just wanted to start when I could. So, I figured, we begin the church in homes, and people would be excited about the new possibilities when we eventually moved into public space. I kept telling them about my vision to go public and impact more people. I took their silence as support. We were on the same page. Finally, the time was coming that we could rent a small space. I boldly and ambitiously announced the coming change. I talked about how many people we would impact. We would be centrally located, so we could be in among the poor. We can do life with them, not just drive to them like tourists. We could build clinics and co-ops to empower the poor. It was powerful plan with incredibly huge vision.

It was met with total rejection. We were meeting in a beautiful mansion of a home in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Green Bay. No one wanted to hear about moving the church downtown. People started talking about us, rather than to us. One woman even held a private prayer meeting to "pray for the pastors". If you have ever been a pastor, that sentence probably causes you to cringe and maybe even have a PTSD flashback. We were not invited to said prayer meeting. Well, no surprise, she believed that God was saying that the pastor's wife (Teresa has always been co-pastor with me as equals, but they refused to acknowledge that) should be showing up for more luncheons and prayer meetings with the other women of the church (she was working full time apart from the church, and we had three children, aged 3 and under). When they prayed for the pastor (me), all they got was the word "PRIDE". All of these plans were to feed my own ego. I wanted to grow the church only to have more people applaud me. It was all about me.

Now, they didn't tell me directly about what they felt God was saying. I had to find out through a third-party gossip link. Of course, it wasn't gossip, because the people in the church were calling one another "out of concern" for the pastor. "Please pray for Pastor Bill. The devil is using Bill's PRIDE to lead us all off course." No one spoke to Pastor Bill. Someone on the "prayer chain" who loved us let me know. I didn't have trouble believing they prayed for me and got the word "PRIDE". I struggle with pride every day. That isn't even something that offends me, because it's absolutely true! I am a broken, prideful person, and it would take me a million years to ever really conquer it. But, what truly hurts is the fact that this was all done in a secret meeting and the results were never given to me, because a bunch of chicken-shit Christians were so trapped in their own plans and vision for church, as well as their own pride, that they couldn't even approach me in love! I decided then and there to shut down the church. We were going to take one year to simply pray and rewrite the vision of Adullam. I invited all of the people in the church, even my haters, to join us. If they didn't like my vision, help us write one that meets all of our hearts' desires. At the end of that year, we were going to go public. How that was going to look was wide open! Join us, all of you, and let's build something that incredibly reflects the love of Jesus! They all quit, except for a few very close friends...and my mom. I think even my toddler, Maggie, was thinking of finding somewhere else to worship.

Ugh, what a mess. I knew that we were too exclusive meeting in a home. People outside the church saw it as a cult. It was just weird. People in the church were there because they didn't want a public church. They wanted something just for them! As I have coached and counseled some church planters, I always tell them, now, what I learned about intentionality and buildings. You have to plant what you are going to become. If you are a house church type of pastor, then, by all means, start off in homes. But, if you have a plan to be open to the public and reaching people, then start in a public space right away. Otherwise, people think you are leading them one way and suddenly switching. The people you gather will come because they are looking for what you are offering at that time, not for what you are casting as vision for the future. Needs are immediate in nature. I have no idea what I will need in 5 years. I know that, today, I need prayer and support, because right now I am going through __________. I need an experience right now that meets that need!

Now, there is a lot more to my ongoing battle with physical spaces and buildings. This was just phase one. I will deal with more in a day or two.

But, right now, let's start the conversation with this:

When have you heard the voice of God in your life? What was it like? Was it specific or more general?

Share, please, how have spaces helped or hindered your experiences of God and community? How important is space to experiencing the presence of God? What do you, personally, look for in a worship environment?